Cuisine Roulante

Someone posted this photo on a Facebook page. It is of a "roulante", a large, horse-drawn, mobile cooker with a limber, full title Cuisine Roulante avec Avant-Train. The roulante was issued to all branches of the French Army and was designed to cook  meals for a company of soldiers or the equivalent, approx 150 - 200 men.

I found some more photos.

There were a number of different manufacturers, each producing slightly different designs. Thousands were made and then taken into storage in 1919.

During the 1920's and 30's, one model was chosen and kept. In 1939, they were taken out of storage and 8822 were issued to regiments. Orders were issued for the manufacture of 440 new models per month, but this figure was never achieved.

In the early 30's, a roulante for motorised units was developed as a trailer. This was the Cuisine Roulante-Remorque mle 1916-1936 M.38. Around 3000 were available in September 1939, with orders for a total of 250 per month, not reached, were given to several manufacturers.